


Ablation

by sibley (ferns)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e13 Stars & S.T.R.I.P.E. Part Two, Gen, Murder, Protective Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Barbara knows she's probably not going to survive this. She might be able to come to terms with that if it comes down to it. But she refuses to make peace with the idea that once Jordan is finished with her, he will slaughter everyone she's ever loved.
Relationships: Barbara Whitmore & Courtney Whitmore, Pat Dugan/Barbara Whitmore
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	Ablation

**Author's Note:**

> I may be the only one on the planet who has this much to say about Barbara Whitmore and I'm comfortable with that.
> 
> [ **CW:** this fic contains descriptions of gore, blood, threats of murder/harm including threats toward children and teenagers, briefly implied fear of sexual assault, briefly implied domestic violence, brief strangulation, and murder essentially done in self-defense.]

The realization is crystal clear.

Jordan’s going to kill her.

He’s going to kill her, and then he’s going to kill Courtney and Pat and probably Mike, too.

The thought is terrifying to Barbara. Of course it is. She’s spent a decade and a half afraid of everything that could possibly hurt Courtney, from strangers to car accidents to natural disasters and everything in between. And she’s spent the past few days terrified of what could happen specifically because of Jordan. She’s her  _ daughter.  _ She’d do anything to keep her safe.

Her heartbeat is so loud in her ears it’s a wonder she can even hear him when he confirms all of her worst fears. Jordan’s fingers dig into her skin, so cold they almost burn, and she tries to take shuddering breaths even as ice crystals rake the inside of her throat.

She’s going to die. He’s going to kill her. But more importantly, he’s going to kill the people she loves.

So she kicks and struggles as he shoves her toward the edge of the clocktower balcony, because any second she delays him is a second he’s not using to attack her family. She manages to rake her nails down the side of his face once, and the thin lines of blood that come to the surface are slow and leave flakes of frost in their wakes.

It’s not relief that makes her knees go weak when she hears Pat shout from the other side of the balcony.

_ “I will kill your daughter and your husband for what you’ve all done.” _

Jordan leaves her clinging to the railing when he turns to advance on him. Barbara can barely hear what they’re saying. Just a few syllables in between the whistling of the wind.

Jordan’s distracted. His back is to her. She knows she only has a few seconds, a minute at most, to make use of that. She tries to breathe past the numbness of her fingers. Jordan has powers and years of experience. She doesn’t even have a weapon. Neither does Pat, unless he’s hiding a gun in one of his pockets. There shouldn’t be anything she can do. She’s helpless. 

The thing is, if he kills her… it doesn’t matter. Barbara knows her place in all this, and it’s not that of a superhero. She’s either the leverage or the tragic backstory or both. No powers. No weapon. She was brought up there to die. And she could live with that—well, she couldn’t, not literally, but she could make peace with that on some level, because it’s her job to disappear like every other person who’s gotten involved with this life because somebody in their family decided to put on a mask and wear a cape for a day.

But Jordan’s going to kill everyone she loves. He’s going to slaughter the most important people in the world, the people she loves more than anybody else, and he’s going to take pleasure in doing it. That’s not something she’s just going to stand idly by and watch happen. Absolutely not. No matter how outmatched she is, if she’s going to die today, she’ll die trying to stop Jordan from hurting her family. 

Barbara hasn’t taken a self-defense class in years. Not since she had to worry about Sam coming around and trying to start something for no reason because he was mad she’d kicked him out again. But some of the lessons stuck with her. Like the one about how no matter how incapacitated an aggressor seemed to be in the moment, turning one’s back on them was a terrible idea unless it was to immediately sprint away from the scene and call for help. 

As she carefully pulls her car keys out of her pocket while squeezing them to stifle any sounds they might make from clinking together, Barbara decides she’s glad Jordan apparently never heard about that one.

There aren’t many soft spots to hit while attacking from behind, but the punch she lands angled just behind his jaw and under his ear with the key in her fist is still enough to make him stumble.

Jordan turns on her, ice cracking down his face and hands as he tries to grab a hold of her again. She jumps back, but there’s nowhere else to go, and she hits the metal railing hard enough to take her breath away. The only way to get away from him is to jump over and fall to her death.

She hears a little cry from Pat, and watches ice coalesce over his legs to hold him in place as more congeals over his mouth like a gag. She’s too far away to help. Nobody is coming—and they shouldn’t, they should be running as far from here as they can because they’re just kids who got saddled with way too much. She puts her fists up, bloody keys still clutched tight.

“You…” He grits his teeth and lifts his hand to the spot where she hit him. He says something in Norwegian before snarling—“You could have been a part of a better world. You could have watched us fix things. You could have  _ helped  _ us fix things.”

“You’re not fixing anything like this. By hurting people for no reason. You don’t care about saving the world.” Barbara looks past him at Pat. His eyes are wide and there’s blood dripping down his face from a cut on his forehead. The one on the bridge of his nose has been reopened, too. “You don’t care about  _ healing  _ it. You just want control.”

_ “Control  _ is the only way to make this world better.” He moves closer. Ice grows over his hands, thick and heavy and sharp enough to make her bleed when he grabs her by the throat and pulls her too closely against him, enough that she can practically feel his steady pulse instead of her own adrenaline-filled one. (She knows what he wants. Wanted. She hopes there’s a part of him that wants to be too honorable to take it.) “I’m sorry you couldn’t see that.”

“I’m sorry too,” Barbara says honestly. It’s a bit difficult to choke the words out with the pressure at her neck trying to keep them in. She’s still looking just behind him, but now it’s not at Pat. Despite the gravity of the situation, there’s something that makes her smile. “I’m sorry your son had to grow up with the father he did. And I’m sorry about this.”

She knees him in the crotch as hard as she physically can, ducking down with her hands shielding her head the second he automatically recoils. She screws her eyes shut tightly and counts backwards from three in her head.

She doesn’t see the blast from Courtney’s staff as it rips through Jordan’s chest, but the heat that warms her all the way down to her core and the sound of shattering ice tells her everything she needs to know regardless.

“Mom!” Courtney shouts as she skids through her landing on the ice-slicked balcony. She lets go of the staff and it moves on its own to press against Pat’s calves, thawing at the ice there. “Mom, are you okay?”

Barbara pulls herself up on the railing. She knows she shouldn’t look. She should pay attention to her family. She should make sure they’re okay. She should make sure Courtney’s not suffering from a concussion, that Pat hasn’t destroyed his ribs even worse, that they’re not the only ones there because something happened to the other kids… 

She looks anyway.

Jordan stares in her general direction, blood dripping from his mouth. His fingers twitch weakly, all semblance of monstrous claws and icy armor gone. The hole in his midsection isn’t clean. The edges are jagged, blood filled with red frazils oozing too slowly onto the cement as his alveoli spill out from between the shattered edges of his ribs. There’s a small cloud of silvery condensation every time he takes a breath—and he  _ is  _ still breathing, in fits and starts too close to how Pat was only a day ago.

The sight of it should make her feel nauseous. She should be horrified by the cracking noises coming from somewhere in his body, by the blood on his face, by the way she can actually  _ see  _ his heart pumping out all his body’s precious blood. But she doesn’t feel sick. She feels satisfied.

He was going to hurt her family. He was going to kill them. And now he’s lying like this. Helpless and dying and filled with the knowledge that he  _ failed. _

“I… I meant to hurt him,” Courtney says. Barbara’s heart clenches at the tone she’s using. The little trembling in her voice. This was  _ never  _ the kind of life Courtney was meant to have.  _ Never.  _ “I wasn’t trying to kill him. I just didn’t want him to kill  _ you.  _ I just…” She shakes her head. “I was only trying to hurt him.”

“He’s still alive,” Barbara says. For some reason she can’t quite catch her breath. Jordan makes a little choked noise when she speaks. Maybe he’s trying to interrupt her. To make one final effort to convince her to join his side and see what he thought was the light. “You didn’t kill him.” 

She looks up, briefly, and locks eyes with Pat. She tilts her head, and after a brief pause he nods back and steps away from the slush puddled around his feet. He rests a hand on Courtney’s shoulder and squeezes.

“Court,” he says softly, “let’s go help your friends, okay? They might still need help if there are any ISA members left standing.”

“But—Mom,” she protests. The staff nudges its way under her arm with a little warbling sound. It’s cute. Somehow, she’s actually managed to grow fond of that thing. “Mom, come with us, we’ll… we’ll do something about him, we’ll… Come with us. I’ll protect you.”

Barbara shakes her head. She finds herself putting her keys back in her pocket and moving forward practically on autopilot. Jordan—Icicle, she should be calling him Icicle, but she isn’t because somehow to call him that will make him feel less human and tangible and real than she wants (needs) him to be—is going to die today. He’s not long for this world already. No matter how he dies, Courtney shouldn’t have to watch. She’s too good to see something like that. Even if she’s witnessed it before. “Go. I don’t want you to see this.”

Courtney’s face pales. The costume she proudly said she tailored herself suddenly looks several sizes too big on her. A little kid playing dress-up, if that little kid could use a superweapon to destroy her enemies. Her voice breaks as she says, “Mom?”

Pat manages to pull her away and push her face firmly into his shoulder right when Barbara takes a deep breath and stomps  _ down. _

The last desperate gasps of Jordan Mahkent’s life dissolve under several sickeningly wet crunching sounds as spiderwebs of frozen dendrite crackle across his skin.

“You shouldn’t have messed with  _ my _ fucking family,” Barbara whispers even though she’s well aware it’s too late for him to hear it. It’s so cold she can see her own breath hanging in the air.

Jordan’s eyes gaze lifelessly up at the cloudy sky. The hoarfrost in his diaphragm gleams brighter than any crystal in the morning sun. A bird sings somewhere down the street. The wind blows a small flurry of early winter snow from the gable near the top of the clocktower. She wonders how much of Blue Valley’s freak weather patterns were actually the fault of Jordan and his grand plan. How many years they’d spent laying the groundwork for it, only for it all to be ruined in one morning.

There will be bruises on her throat by tonight where he grabbed her. She can already feel them forming on her arms beneath her jacket. There’s blood on her shoes and blood on Pat’s face and blood on Courtney’s hands where she’s gripping tightly onto Pat’s jacket. Two thirds of the people she loves more than anyone else are here to see—or hear, in Courtney’s case—what she did to a monster.

It should feel wrong.

It doesn’t.

Barbara takes another deep breath of air so cold it stings.

Jordan never would’ve stopped. He would have killed her family. First her, then Courtney and Pat, and then he would’ve gone after Mike. He would’ve killed god knows how many people after that, all because he thought seeking justice was the same thing as taking control.

She has to step over Jordan’s body to get to them and hug them as tight as she dares. Courtney’s trembling. Pat’s trying to whisper words of comfort to her as he shifts so his hug can accommodate Barbara better. Two of the people she’d destroy the world for.

No. It doesn’t feel wrong at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Barb should've at _least_ been the one to temporarily take Jordan out and I will not change my mind.
> 
> I'm @augustheart on tumblr.


End file.
